


twenty-six comprehensive ways to express your love for your family

by arklaygothic (clockworkcorvids)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: A-Z, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Canon-Typical Violence, Challenges, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Multi, One Shot Collection, Snippets, Team as Family, and also a single smidge of canon, everything is absolutely fine and good and happy, except for when there are, no beta we die like men, sorta but not really but also kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkcorvids/pseuds/arklaygothic
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. I took 26 words, one for each letter of the alphabet, and wrote a (roughly) 100-word snippet for each.Chreon, Claire/Rebecca, and good ol' family and friend bonding.
Relationships: Chris Redfield & Claire Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy & Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy & Claire Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield, Rebecca Chambers & Chris Redfield, Rebecca Chambers/Claire Redfield, Sherry Birkin & Leon S. Kennedy & Chris Redfield & Claire Redfield
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	twenty-six comprehensive ways to express your love for your family

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from [here](https://1-million-words.livejournal.com/3116732.html)
> 
> thanks to my homie [uai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uai) for coming up with the list of words, but also fuck you for making me write 100 words around the prompt 'fart' B)

** Abacus **

When Rebecca moves, she temporarily leaves some of her stuff at Chris’ apartment. She also sleeps over enough times that the default arrangement of couch cushions shifts to one that’s most comfortable for her to stretch her entire body out on. She apologizes endlessly, and Chris insists just as endlessly that she’s always welcome there, because it’s  _ true _ , any STARS member would be. When she finally gets settled into her new apartment, though, some things slip through the cracks - namely, an abacus. Leave it to her to have one, though she’s enough of a genius to do any calculations it could handle all in her head. Chris keeps forgetting to give it back to her, so it eventually becomes a staple on his bookshelf. (He prefers a calculator, though.) 

** Banana **

“No fucking way!” Leon exclaims, setting down the cup in front of him. “Bananas do  _ not _ belong in a smoothie.”

“They’re healthy!” Chris insists, pouting just a little in the hopes that this can win his ever-stubborn boyfriend over. “Full of potassium and fiber.”

Leon sighs and cups his face in one hand, leaning against the table with his elbow. 

“Chris. Light of my life. My dear, sweet, lovely boyfriend whom I adore to no end. If I wanted bananas - ” he pauses to inhale deeply, putting his other hand in the air, index finger out to make a point “ - if I wanted  _ fucking bananas _ , I would eat them raw.”

Chris huffs. He’s not going to win this one. After the kale incident, and now this, Leon will probably never trust him to make a smoothie ever again. 

“Fine, then,” he says, relenting. He reaches over to pick up the smoothie with one hand, and with the other, plucks Leon’s free hand out of the air to press a kiss to his knuckles. 

“More bananas for me.”

** Cashmere **

Cashmere isn’t just expensive, it’s also a pain in the ass to wash, and if Leon has to get weird looks at the dry cleaners  _ one more time _ just because his nice shirts have blood and other bodily fluids all over them, he swears he’s going to scream and just switch to wearing a hazmat suit every day. But.  _ But _ . (There’s always a  _ but _ when Chris gets involved, he swears, always some wild caveat, because the man can’t do anything like a normal person, he always has to involve a rocket launcher or some equally improbable garbage in his daily routine. Leon would be lying if he said this isn’t one of the things he loves about Chris.) When Leon gets dragged into the annual Redfield holiday sweater exchange, though, Chris absolutely  _ adores _ the red pullover wool sweater Leon gets him (and that, admittedly, is also a pain to wash), so Leon doesn’t really have a choice but to let himself appreciate the light grey sweater he unwraps. Besides, he genuinely likes it, and the smile on Chris’ face when he pulls it on is worth how careful he’s going to have to be wearing this around.

** Dice **

Nobody is surprised when Rebecca announces she’s dragging her friends into a DnD campaign, which all of them (except for Leon, who is a workaholic killjoy and has to be bribed into joining, and Sherry, who is overzealous and has to be bribed into  _ not _ joining) happily agree to. They  _ are _ surprised, however, when Jill shows up with a custom-embroidered bag of dice and a well-worn but tastefully decorated DM’s screen. 

“Huh,” is the first thing out of Leon’s mouth when she sits down, “you’re the DM?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “You actually showed up?” 

The silence could be quantified, if anyone cared enough, but it’s over quickly enough as they both snort in unison.

**Elephant**

“So,” Leon starts, from where he’s draped himself over the only semi-clear spot on Rebecca’s desk. “Are we going to address the elephant in the room?”

He and Claire both stare at the small paperweight, a glass elephant, that sits atop a stack of papers on the desk.

Rebecca, who is somewhere in the records room adjacent to her office, sighs audibly. “Why did I let you come to work with me,” she mutters to herself, to which Leon says “Because you love us!”

“Claire, yes. You, not so much.” 

Claire grins at Leon from where she’s seated on the desk, feet dangling off the side, and pats his head. 

**Fart**

Claire regrets using the phrase “brain fart” to describe a brief lapse in memory, even if it had been ironic, because now Sherry won’t stop giggling and whispering it back at her. One would think, by her age, that she’s mature enough not to do this, but it’s not like anyone’s going to stop her. It’s harmless, albeit slightly exasperating, and after all she’s been through, any source of joy she can find is a worthwhile one, and not just for her - he doesn’t say anything, but Claire notices Leon smiling at Sherry’s happiness, and that makes her smile too.

**Giant**

Some people get physically weaker or lose muscles as they age, whether through a natural progression or simply because they don’t work out as much anymore. This is not the case for Chris, though. Leon swears he’s only gotten more and more muscular over the years, and possibly taller as well, although that might just be an illusion created by the fact that he’s generally a giant. He was already tall and strong to begin with, enough so that he can easily pull Leon against his chest and fit his arms all the way around the other man, but after long enough he goes from fit to downright olympian. 

**Helium**

Rebecca sometimes passes by tanks of helium - the kind used for birthday parties - at the store. She’s never said anything (although she did make a point to subtly suggest regular balloons instead of the helium variety for Sherry’s birthday party; after all, they’re cheaper), but she can’t see them without thinking about the chem lab accident she witnessed back while getting her undergraduate degree. Helium is a noble gas; it doesn’t typically react with any other chemicals - but mechanical reactions aren’t out of the question, and this means sometimes a pressurized cylinder full of gas will explode. It had been pretty, albeit somewhat terrifying.

**Ironic**

They’re halfway there when Leon gets a call saying that the meeting Chris is driving him to has gotten cancelled. The original plan was for Chris to go for a walk -he insisted it’d be the opposite of boring - during the meeting, and the two of them would go get coffee afterwards and call it a date.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Chris says as Leon hangs up his phone. He’s smiling, though.

Leon cranes his neck to look out the window. The weather is perfect for a walk, sunny but not too hot.

“Yeah, truly,” he adds, smiling back. There’s an ironic look to his grin, eyebrows slightly narrowed and one side of his lips pulled higher than the other.

**Jam**

“What are you doing?” Claire’s voice comes from behind Rebecca, and the biochemist freezes up, coffee machine plug in one hand and a (plugged in) hair straightener in the other.

“I’m. Uh. Making coffee.” Rebecca is eloquent enough to win awards in her papers and grant proposals, but her girlfriend catches her doing something stupid and suddenly she’s illiterate.

“I don’t think you need a hair straightener to make coffee.”

“The plug is bent,” Rebecca says, and she prays that Claire hasn’t taken enough physics to know how plug sockets work. Claire reaches over and unplugs the hair straightener before gently plucking it out of Rebecca’s hand, which means she either  _ does _ know about plug sockets or just has enough common sense to know that modifying a plug is a bad idea. 

“Well,” she says, looking at the plug still in Rebecca’s hand, “at least you didn’t try to jam it in the socket. Let’s just go buy some coffee.”

That isn’t a half bad idea.

**Kebab**

“That is the  _ worst _ ,” Leon says as he approaches Chris, scratches and bruises marring every inch of revealed skin - which isn’t much, but still. He’s breathing hard, gun clutched in one hand and a combat knife in the other, but he’s alright - and so is Chris, who’s currently holding one end of a twelve-foot metal pole of unknown origin. The rest of the pole is driven through the throats of multiple Crimson Heads, making a neat and distinctly unsettling zombie kebab.

“Yeah, but it works.” 

“That it does,” Leon agrees, standing back as Chris splashes the zombies with gasoline. There’s the distinctive flick of a lighter, and then the kebab goes up in flames. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Chris says. 

**Lenses**

Chris thinks Claire and Leon’s friendship is a beautiful thing, but he also thinks it might be a slight mistake. Just a little bit. Not for any serious reason, but because Claire has taken it upon herself to teach Leon how to ride a motorcycle, and Chris was totally behind that, really, he  _ was _ and  _ is _ , but when the two of them come back from Leon’s big test (passed with flying colors, of course) wearing matching aviator shades with reflective ombre lenses, he sighs deeply and wonders what they’ve gotten themselves into. At least their jackets don’t match, because a) that would be hideous, and b) Chris and Claire already have matching jackets, so he’d be morally obligated to end any other similar pacts, and he doesn’t want to do that to Leon.

**Mint**

They still don’t know what the legendary green herbs of the Arklay Mountains are actually called, although plenty of weed jokes have been made, but Rebecca’s lab samples have turned, over time, into a full-fledged garden. At some point, she expanded beyond the three Arklay herbs, too, and she grows mint plants now. Spearmint, lemon balm, sweet mint, peppermint. She says it’s because she wanted to compare their chemical buildup and growth patterns to that of the Arklay herbs, but scientific purposes don’t stop her from chewing on the leaves now and then, and, later on, drying them to make tea.

**Neon**

The bar is dim at eleven at night on a Saturday, lit only by purple and pink neon signs reading the name and menu, but the drinks are good, which is why Chris and Jill make a point of going there. Aside from brawls, practice at the shooting range, backpacking, and other such athletically intensive activities, it’s their special form of bonding. It also happens to be within walking distance of Jill’s apartment, which is convenient on the rare occasion that Chris gets absolutely shitfaced, or the less rare occasion that Jill does the same. Chris has passed out on her couch and woken up with a hangover way too many times to count. 

**Orphan**

Chris understands what it’s like to be an orphan, and he knows Claire - who was barely old enough to understand what it meant when their parents died - understands it equally well, if not better. They both have different experiences with it, despite having lost the same parents, but they also both know too well what Sherry has gone through and still  _ is _ going through. He’s not surprised at all that Claire and Sherry quickly became attached to each other, and while he hadn’t entirely seen it coming, he’s also not surprised when, partway through a movie night (accompanied by a very tired Leon, of course, who may or may not be asleep and using Chris’ chest as a pillow), he suddenly startles and realizes that he, too, has bonded with the orphan his family more or less adopted.

**Prat**

“Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” Claire curses, kicking the flat tire. It does nothing, because a foot isn’t anything like an air pump, and anyways, the tire has multiple distinctive knife marks in it, as do the other three. Leon, next to her, crosses and then uncrosses his arms, shifting his weight between one leg and the other. 

He sighs. “I guess this is what we get for parking illegally.”

“This is  _ Chris’ _ car,” Claire hisses. “He’s going to be so pissed.”

“He should see the guy who slashed his tires.”

“Fucking prat. That guy should come over here again so I can slash his  _ neck _ .”

Leon sighs again, even deeper. “Are you going to call Triple A, or should I do it?”

**Query**

“I’m wondering,” Rebecca says, “how did you ask Chris out?” 

“Huh,” Leon responds, ever the eloquent one. 

“You know, since you two have been dating for a while. How did you do it the first time? How did you, like - ” she waves a hand around, seemingly lost for words “ - tell him you like him like that.”

“Uh. Well. I mean. Why do you want to know? That sorta query is kind of out of nowhere.”

Rebecca blushes. “Well, I know it’s not quite the same, but he’s a lot like Claire, and I want to ask her out.”

_ This _ gets Leon’s interest. He knows Claire better, but they’re both his friends, and there isn’t much he wants more than seeing his friends happy. 

He narrows his eyebrows and smirks. “I can do one better than that. I know Claire pretty well, so I might be able to help you figure out how to word it for her.”

**Rat**

After the colossal gator in the Raccoon City sewers - and seriously, whoever came up with that shit was on meth or maybe something worse; of all the animals to supersize, why did it have to be a fucking crocodilian, and not something tolerable or even nice like a house cat? - Leon is hesitant to be around any animal that appears larger than it should be. Even Clifford the Big Red Dog™ might scare him, but Sherry is at the point in her life where she’s outgrown that, so he doesn’t really know. He’d forgotten, though, in his time away, how  _ fucking _ terrible the NYC pigeons are. He used to joke that they were like mutants, but now he’s not so sure they aren’t. And the rats,  _ god _ , the damn  _ rats _ . They’re the  _ worst _ .

**Stream**

Rebecca remembers stumbling around in the woods surrounding Spencer Mansion, everything she could sense clouded by delirium, her heartbeat sharpened by fear. She’d lost most of her supplies, before she made it into the mansion. In a half-hearted attempt to find the rest of Bravo Team, whether they be corpses or living or something else entirely, she had stumbled straight into a stream. Despite all the horrors around her, the water had run clear, and she’d gratefully drunk it. At the time, she’d been wary of the possible dangers, but that had been nothing compared to having to boil and sanitize rot-blackened water. Now, when she goes long enough forgetting to drink anything but coffee, or to drink anything at  _ all _ , it’s a rush of relief to get her hands on fresh, cold water.

**Tact**

“Let me fucking do it,” Claire insists. “I’ve lived in enough damn apartments to know how to negotiate rent.” She crosses her arms, clearly irritated, as Leon vigorously shakes his head.

“No way,” he says. “Not like  _ that _ you won’t be negotiating rent. One slip of the tongue and you’ll get us evicted.”

“Yeah, you’re not much better, buddy. Need I remind you who’s illegally keeping a cat in the apartment?”

Looking between them, Chris sighs. All he needs is popcorn and a pay-per-view subscription, and this could be WWE.

“Neither of you have any tact,” he says. “At this rate, we might as well just ask Jill, and she doesn’t even live here.”

**Up**

Leon may be physically faster, but Chris has far more endurance. Thus, when he starts running up the latest steep incline, all too common in the Arklay Mountains, and Chris runs to catch up with him, Chris overtakes Leon after a short while. 

“Fuck,” Leon heaves as a burst of energy comes to its end, “slow down.”

“I thought you were the fast one,” Chris teases, smiling softly.

“Yeah, but I’m not - ” he bends over, hands splayed on his knees, to catch his breath “ - I’m not as great at the whole  _ long-distance  _ thing as you.”

“You ran from a Tyrant for a couple days straight,” Chris points out. 

“You’re not an undead killing machine, you’re my  _ boyfriend _ . And I’m not running away from you, I’m running - ” Leon picks himself up again and begins to walk “ -  _ towards  _ you.”

Chris spreads his arms out as if inviting Leon. “Come get me, then.”

**Vision**

“Do you ever think about the future?” Chris asks, one night, when he and Leon are out camping. They’re lying in a field of tall grass that’s probably full of ticks and snakes and fuck knows what else, but the only things Chris is paying attention to are the stars above, the soft blanket beneath him, and Leon’s elbow brushing his own.

“What do you mean? Tomorrow? Next week? Next  _ year? _ ”

“I mean, like, the  _ far  _ future. I’m looking at the sky, and I’m thinking about how short and small our lives are compared to the grand scale of things, and how in the blink of an eye we’re going to be old.”

Leon scoffs, barely audible. “Yeah. If we’re even  _ alive _ then.”

“We?” Unspoken:  _ Your vision of your far future includes me? _

“Sure. If I’m going to be fighting the good fight until I can’t anymore, I hope you’re there with me all the way.”

Chris never had any doubts, but silently, he’s relieved. 

“I can’t think of a better place to be,” he says.

**What**

“Chris!” Leon shouts over the roar of the descending helicopter, coming to pick Chris up and take him away to a mission of indeterminate time and nature. Classified, classified, everything is always classified. That hasn’t stopped Leon from picking up bits and pieces here and there, but nothing that would put Chris’ countless NDAs at risk, at least not if he keeps that information to himself.

Chris’ face distorts in confusion. Although the moment is stressful, that expression is almost cute. 

“What?” he shouts back. The helicopter lands, sending Leon’s bangs whipping into his face and stinging every inch of exposed skin.

Leon sighs. Takes a step closer to Chris, who’s standing by the helipad, about to depart. Drags the taller man down and into his arms. Presses a kiss to his jaw. 

“You’d better come back,” he says, right against Chris’ ear.

“Of course I will,” Chris says - without hesitation, and that’s enough to tell Leon that he’ll try his damn hardest. 

**Xeno**

“Wait, wait,” Leon is saying, hands flailing in a physical manifestation of his brain’s attempt to grasp at something he doesn’t quite understand. “How different  _ are  _ the BOWs? Like, obviously Mr. X was less human than the regular ol’ Crimson Heads, and forget the weird shit in the sewers, but are they...you know,  _ aliens  _ or whatever?”

He half expects Rebecca to be exasperated by his questions, but on the contrary, she’s  _ delighted _ to ramble, using words so complicated he thinks they might not be English, and occasionally backtracking to explain in terms that’ll make sense to the resident not-biochemistry-genius. 

“So,” she starts, “you know how all life as we know it is made of DNA and RNA?”

Leon blinks. “Yeah.”

“So are the Tyrants, and all BOWs. Sure, they’re modified, but the base is still the same. Then there’s xenobiology, though, where you get into XNA - xenonucleic acids - and synthetic organisms that, on a fundamental level - ” she pinches her index finger and thumb together “ - are made up of something different.”

**Yield**

Dust sprays everywhere in a massive cloud worthy of an action movie slo-mo shot as Claire brakes at top speed, somehow managing not to fall off her bike at the yield sign she hadn’t noticed until the last second. Not like it’s useful, though. She silently thanks whatever deity oversees impulsive motorcyclists and shitty road design for the fact that this road is, in addition to being dusty and long and flat, mostly empty.

“Huh,” she says out loud as she finishes this thought, although nobody is around to hear her and it’s muffled by her helmet anyways. - the road isn’t completely empty. In fact, at the yield sign, where another, even less well-kept road intersects it, a single rabbit sits in the dust. As she watches, the animal hops off the road and disappears into dry brush, and she slowly revs her bike up again. 

Maybe the yield sign is useful after all.

**Zealous**

“Well,  _ someone’s  _ zealous,” Leon remarks 

“I’m just excited!” she says, voice cracking a little. 

The lobby of the surplus store is mostly deserted and, in his opinion, somewhat suspicious, but Chris sent the two of them in with the highest praises of its goods, which is good enough for Leon. Claire, meanwhile, is probably helped by Chris’ input, but Leon knows the real reason she’s excited. He saw the order slip - of all the things Chris sent them to pick up, one item stands out. The rocket launcher. The  _ fucking  _ rocket launcher. One on hand, he’s heard her tales of firing it in the Raccoon City sewers, and is therefore somewhat interested to see what she can do with it, but on the other hand, it’s a rocket launcher, and nobody in their right mind really needs one of those. 

Then again, Claire is plausibly less sane than even he or Chris.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! <3
> 
> this is all over the place, but it was just an exercise to get the Writing Juices(tm) flowing, so i'm happy with that. and, of course, i slid in a reference to science things that i think are cool -  
> [here's](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909387/) a neat introductory paper on xenobiology that i quickly skimmed while trying to remember [this](https://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_unveils_synthetic_life/transcript) ted talk i watched ages ago, which talks about synthetic biology  
> it's very fun stuff!


End file.
